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Wednesday, 27 August 2014

Serial: Chronicles of Steele Raven Episode 1 by Pauline Creeden

I received a copy of Chronicles of Steele: Raven Episode One in exchange for my review.

Raven has been trained as her father to become a Reaper, and as such she is required to actively save a life in exchange for every life she has taken. Deciding that she wants to give up on being a Reaper, Raven only has two more lives left to save after saving the young Baron Darius from death. Arrested and taken to his father's seat, instead of the gruesome death she was expecting, Raven meets Darius' older brother who asks her to take Darius to see the Woods Witch in order to cure him of the disease that has taken hold of him and save him from being assassinated by his father. Knowing that the man she loves lives out that way, Raven takes the young boy with her, to be pursued by the Duke's guard led by Jack Grant, who can't quite seem to figure Raven out...

This was a short episode and it felt right that it was an episode, as in it didn't feel like the author had just hacked apart a book, and while the ending has left room to be picked up in the next episode I didn't feel like it was overly cliffhanger ish, nor that the events in the book were unresolved as such (though obviously the story arc isn't complete).

I thought that Raven was an interesting character, though that she'll be more fully explored later on, though the basics of her character are there I'm hoping that there is going to be more to her than there is already. She's definitely got a kick ass quality about her, and is able to take care of herself, though she did also have a somewhat romantic side (even if it did end up in her hurt).

The other character that particularly stood out for me was Jack Grant. There's something about him that I liked as a character and to me it seems like there could be some kind of future connection between him and Raven, maybe that's because he was interested in actually figuring her out rather than just hunting her down. Well and the fact that even hunting her down doesn't really seem to be what he wants to do.

This was definitely interesting, and has me intrigued as to where the rest of the serial is going, especially considering Raven's aversion to violence. I also want to see where Jack Grant is going to go...definitely a good start to a series!

Human life has value.
The poor living in the gutter is as valuable as the rich living in a manor.
The scoundrel is no less valuable than the saint.
Because of this, every life a reaper takes must be redeemed.
Raven has lived by this first tenet since she was trained by her father to become a reaper. But since his death, she’s been spending years redeeming the lives she’s taken. By her count, she’s even and it’s time for that life to end. If she settles down and becomes a wife, she might just feel human again. But on the way to the life she thinks she wants, the baron of New Haven asks her to complete a task which she cannot ignore… Just when Raven decides to give up on her life as an assassin, she’s pulled right back in.
The Chronicles of Steele: Raven is a steampunk-inspired fantasy set in an alternate universe.

Pauline Creeden will be releasing these episodes two weeks apart and on the day of release they will be FREE!
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